12 December 2014

Who Am I?

I'm Cameron (Cam) DuBeers.

I'm Cameron and I've been playing Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) since there wasa D&D. I bought my first boxed set at a record store located in a Texas mall. I had no idea what it was but I wanted to find out. But I digress ...

I was in Chess Club in high school, Chess Club being a euphemism for "war gamer club." My physics teacher, a Viet Nam veteran and war gamer, was the sponsor; meetings took place in his physics lab at the high school. I was a mediocre chess player and an awful war games player, though I loved playing games with my fellow enthusiasts. They understood what my other friends did not: why long and complicated rulebooks for S&T (strategy and tactics) games were preferable to one page of instructions for your typical board game, why Star Trek was cool, and who J. R. R. Tolkien was and why his books should be required reading.

At any rate, a couple of wargamers up in the northern part of the USA wrote this new game called Dungeons & Dragons and it piqued our interest. There was certainly none of the dismissive tone toward D&D I've since read about both in print and online. I drove to the big city and acquired a copy. I owned the only copy of the game in [small town in TX] for a few months and I therefore became the first referee. I studied the book, drew a dungeon, and began a campaign that had over 30 active participants at one point.

That's my gaming credentials. I've played several editions of D&D and their respective clones, but I love OD&D the most. It has its flaws but I know this system best and I've found running a simpler and more open system helps keep gamers who want more rules and more complicated systems away from my table.

Some folks game seriously. I game for fun. Nothing wrong with the former but hard-core gaming simply ain't my bag. Death at zero hit points, d6 damage for all weapons, no critical hits or misses, level caps for demi-humans, level drain working as in the rules ... I've no issue with any of these and I run my campaign accordingly.

That's who I am. Feel free to introduce yourself if you desire. I'll be irregularly posting about whatever catches my interest. Let's see where this goes.